


Feel the Thunder

by lalaiths



Series: break me down and build me up [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Gen, Humor, M/M, all pairings implied, umino iruka's very bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 18:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17513984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaiths/pseuds/lalaiths
Summary: Iruka thought he'd been through enough by now to be able to handle it all. But when his new Intro to History class began with a bang and a whimper he realized just how wrong he was. All pairings implied, part of a larger universe that will be mostly standalone with references tying to each other.





	Feel the Thunder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinobitrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobitrash/gifts).



> Thank you to [shinobitrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobitrash) for brainstorming with me and holding my hand and reading this over for me! It's all your fault, in the end. ; )

Iruka’s Intro to World History class was located in one of the larger lecture halls in the liberal arts building on campus. It boasted a healthy ninety seats, tiered seating, and a podium that connected to surround sound speakers. All in all, for an associate professor, it wasn’t a bad gig. His higher level classes were all upstairs in smaller classrooms. It was easier to teach in them, but the lecture halls had a unique, intimidating flair. 

Students more or less settled into routine after the first couple weeks and everyone found their own roles. He could recognise faces and pick out who paid attention, who wanted to learn, and who were just there to fill out their requirements. Iruka used to be a stickler for attendance when he’d first started, chasing his students around and finding out exactly why they weren’t there. After too many harried students broke down in tears in his office over their workload, he’d relaxed his stance. 

After all, if his husband could be chronically late to everything consistently, Iruka could let Tenten off for being five minutes late after running across campus from her job to be here for his basic level introduction to world history class. It had been a gamble that paid off. Tenten was now on a track to her Bachelors in History with a shine of determination in her eyes. 

Today was no exception despite the exam papers dangling from his fingers, but he’d been tempted to make an example of Kiba Inuzuka when he came slinking in five minutes tardy. Thunder and a buckets’ worth of rain chased the boy inside. He took a seat at the empty row at the back, hunched in on himself awkwardly. He was dripping wet from the rain blasting against the side of the building and pounding against the windows. When he dropped his bag the splat sound echoed across the lecture hall. 

Iruka paused where he stood handing out the first exam of the semester, hand still outstretched to pass a stack of questions to Sakura. He’d tried to make it a challenge to cull the meek, but there was a lot of ground to cover. All he could do was stress advanced courses to really push those interested and add a lot of enthusiasm and hope. The first exam of the semester would let him know which areas his students were truly interested in and which ones he should try to make them interested in.

Kiba slumped against the desk in a way that tempted Iruka to ask where he was hurt, but he in the end he pursed his lips, finished handing things out to the rows, and crossed the back row to deliver Kiba’s to him personally. 

The boy looked worse the closer he got, and Iruka was privately glad he hadn’t snapped at him for being late. In the end he just clapped him on one soaking shoulder and dropped the question packet into the only spot in front of the boy that wasn’t halfway to a puddle. 

“Once you’re finished with your exam, turn your answers in to me at the front and you’ll be free to go.” Iruka rubbed his hands together to disperse liquid and began making his way down the second set of stairs to return to his desk at the front.

That was when he heard it. 

His foot almost slipped on the step at a sharp, crystal clear “ _Arf!_ ”

It echoed across the classroom, bouncing off the ceiling. Iruka froze, and half the students closest to him looked up in alarm. His head snapped back in the direction of the sound but it was only Kiba, still dripping at the back row, hunched over himself in his large, fur lined coat. His face was pale under the hood, which he’d just pushed back to wipe hair out of his eyes. 

Iruka’s brow furrowed as he surveyed the classroom and its rows of students in various states of despair over questions on early world history. A ringtone, maybe? He turned to keep walking, when disaster struck.

First, a shock of lightning that was so bright that it cast long, thick shadows over the podium from the back and ceiling of the class where the windows were located. The thunder that hounded after it was a lingering affair that rolled in like a bass band and stayed for the climax. He glanced up at the flickering lights with worry, shuddering internally. 

But that was the least of his worries. 

“ARF, ARF ARF _ARF!_!” A puppy -- because that’s what it was, a puppy -- burst free with a strangled yelp, falling from Kiba’s coat -- Kiba cried out and tried to launch himself after the small brown and white bundle of soggy fur. He managed to clothesline himself on his desk instead, and he gave a wheezing gurgle. He staggered out of his seat and onto the stair landing. The puppy flailed and flopped right off Kiba’s level and onto the head of Shikamaru below him. 

Shikamaru fell out of his seat and onto the floor by Choji’s seat with a curse, scattering their exams. The puppy boxed Shikamaru in the ear when he tried to grab at its slick fur and tore off down the stairs away from the windows and in Iruka’s direction.

“Akamaru, no!” Kiba yelled, tripping as he half-ran, half-staggered down the steps.

“You brought your _dog_?!” Choji’s yelp was half-strangled as he tried to help Shikamaru up from his lap.

It was only then that Iruka realized what he was too late to prevent. 

Time slowed to a staggering stop as Kiba gained momentum. 

Kiba’s soggy lump of a stowaway leapt headfirst into Iruka’s arms just as Kiba slipped on the stairs and ended up vaulting forwards. He impacted with Iruka, sending Iruka off the final step and onto the hardwood, nicely polished floor of the lecture hall. Iruka’s arms had curled instinctively around the small body of the puppy, and so there was nothing to stop him, dog, and student from skidding backwards into the front of the teaching desk. 

Iruka had been a professor teaching his own classes for some odd-five-or-so years now. He’d gone through the loss of two parents, foster care, the public school system. He’d fought tooth and nail to get through his own degrees at this same university and had clawed his way all the way up to become a professor. He’d handled falling in love, getting engaged, _getting married_. He’d already been through a smear campaign with his husband that left the two of them clinging carefully and tenaciously to employment. Iruka had never let this happen. Not even once! Not even during the car accident that killed his parents.

He’d seen it all. 

And _now_ this?

For the first time in his career, Umino Iruka’s head hit the front of the desk with a crack, and he blacked out. 

 

The rain was still thundering against the windows when Iruka came back to consciousness. A boom of thunder announced the arrival of the waking world. He shuddered in the cool air, tasting bile and the tang of salt on his tongue. He opened his eyes, cringed bodily, and closed them (hopefully forever). Had he actually fainted in front of an entire class of sixty-odd students?

“Professor?” A soft touch against his forehead, and a finger lifted his eyelid. A penlight stabbed into his brain as someone peered into his eyes, making him flinch back.

Something soft -- and wet -- was bundled behind his head, saving him from even further embarrassment by slamming his head against the floor. The more he blinked, the more he realized the shadowy movements were his students were clustered around him. Sakura was holding his head in place. He drew a stilted breath through his nose and smelled wet dog. 

“I’m fine.” He tried to reassure them but his voice came out with a croak. 

He had to clear his throat. For a moment all he could think about was a flashbang. His heart dropped into his stomach.

“I’m fine,” he repeated. He tried to sit up, but Sakura’s hand on his chest was surprisingly firm. 

“I’m a nurse, don’t move,” Sakura said with a hard look, waving her penlight pointedly. Then amended with a blush: “well, will be. I don’t think you have a concussion but do you feel sleepy at all?”

“I’m really sorry Professor,” Kiba was at his left side. There was a suspicious lump under Kiba’s t-shirt that whimpered. His coat was -- ah. It was his pillow. 

“I’m sure the dog is sorry, too?” Iruka asked with a twitch of a smile. It turned into a grimace quickly. “No, I don’t. I really am fine, kids. Back to your seats.” 

He steeled himself and sat up again, ignoring Sakura’s exasperated noises. He staggered to his feet with the help of Kiba, then the desk, then his podium, and he adjusted the rumpled collar of his shirt. He slumped over the stand, rubbing at the scar on the bridge of his nose. 

“Right. I never thought I’d have to add ‘no dogs’ to the syllabus but I’m sure you have a good reason for bringing a _puppy_ to an exam.” 

The classroom and all his wide-eyed students backed up a foot. He was aware his glower had begun to radiate killing intent, and focused it on Kiba. Kiba, to his credit, lasted a moment longer than he thought he would before crumbling and giving a full-body cringe.

“He just, hates storms. I couldn’t leave him at the house when nobody was there.” A feeble defence. Iruka’s heart wasn’t going to crumble to it, it wasn’t! He growled when he realized none of them had started to move yet. There was something trickling down the side of his head. He swiped at it with annoyance and blinked at the blood on his fingers. 

“Professor, maybe you should go to the campus clinic,” Shikamaru declared blandly. He had a bloody nose himself from where the dog had kicked him in the face. “You’re not looking too hot.” 

He closed a fist around it and sighed wearily. He didn’t want to explain this to Kakashi. He didn’t want to explain this to anyone at all, ever. This was embarrassing enough, but it was going to spread around the entire campus by lunch. 

Iruka took a deep breath to compose himself and his rage. “I’ll get checked up after, and it’s alright Kiba, just don’t do it again. You kids only have half an hour left on your exam.” 

“We’re _still_ doing the exam?!” 

“Professor, you’re hurt!” 

“That’s not fair!” 

Iruka was almost at his boiling point. He could feel it, tipping over. If they didn’t do this exam today they were going to be behind and then he’d really never hear the end of it from Danzo -- falling behind in the first four weeks was something he’d used against Kakashi in the past as reasoning for failure to control his classes -- and he wasn’t going to be another weakness to be exploited again. 

If it had to do with his students then he’d do whatever he needed to do, but it didn’t and he was fine, he could do this. Raging headaches had never killed him before. He could _absolutely_ do this. All he had to do was collect their exams. Most of them would have been finished by now if they hadn’t been interrupted. Iruka had just reached the decision, one he’d been about to punctuate by sliding into his desk chair in front of his briefcase, when fate intervened.

The double doors at the back of the class slammed open. Cold wind howled in like a hurricane, scattering the free papers containing exam questions straight off the desks with a blast and down over the lecture floor, students and professor included. 

“Sorry I’m late Professor!” Naruto Uzumaki called out, obliviously. An exam fell over Iruka’s face, he crumpled it in one bloodied fist, breathing out slowly through his nose. Naruto planted his feet and wrestled the doors closed, but not before a crash of lighting struck behind him, silhouetting him against the weather outside and solidifying his fate. Iruka’s eye twitched.

The loudest blast of thunder spilled over the lecture hall and the spectacular failure that was this session. The lights flickered and died. 

As darkness descended Iruka finally, blissfully, inevitably, snapped.

_“NARUTO!”_

**Author's Note:**

> i've been out of university for like six years what am i doooing what happens if i dye her??
> 
> thanks for reading! there will definitely be more to this universe!


End file.
